Need to break lease/ nothing in my lease concerning breaking it, any opinions?
Question by steve42086: Need to break lease/ nothing in my lease concerning breaking it, any opinions?
I’ve recently signed a 1yr lease for my apt, but must now leave for personal reasons. My lease states nothing about what would happen if I must break my lease early. What should I do? Is there a loophole to break my lease without facing charges?
Best answer:
Answer by Ms. E
Hi,
Technically, you can break a lease even if the lease says you can’t. What the landlord then has to do is what is called “mitigate” damages. What this means is that the landlord has to make a reasonable effort to rent the apartment to someone else as quickly as is reasonable.
What happens then is that you will be charged for any rent in between when you moved out and the landlord got it rented again. The landlord can’t just sit around and not try to rent it again.
The bad thing is that you won’t likely be able to use the landlord as a good reference because you broke your lease. But, from what I’ve learned in law school (I’m just a law student, but am also a property manager of a 26 unit apartment building in California), you can still break your lease even though you said you’d be there a year, for instance. The landlord then has to make a reasonable effort to get it re-rented, but can then take the lost rent out of your security deposit.
But, of course, don’t expect a good reference.
Best of luck to you!
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Tags: Break, Breaking, concerning, Lease, Need, nothing, opinions
Reread your lease again. The terms are there.
It is a rare lease that doesn’t have a clause about breaking a lease. The worst that can happen is being required to pay an additional 2 months, plus you loose your security. I am a landlord and that is how the lease that I am able to purchase reads.
If there are no written criteria for early termination of the lease, you are bound to the lease for its duration. If the landlord will offer some sort of agreement to terminate early, that’s your only option. Otherwise, you continue to pay the rent until the landlord re-rents the unit, and you can also be required to pay the landlord’s costs of re-renting, such as advertising, cleanup, etc.